Page 13 of Darkness Births the Stars #1
Baradaz merely nodded at my words and completed her task. “There. It should heal nicely, though it will take some time.” Her fingers lingered on my skin a moment too long before she bandaged me up again. “It will leave quite a scar, though, I’m afraid.”
I relentlessly pounded at the slight fissure in her mask, hoping it would become a genuine crack, revealing the old Baradaz beneath. “Well, it’s not the only mark you’ve left on me.”
As expected, my casual words made her glance at the silvery scars on my shoulder and the elegant black lines covering the left side of my body. An instinctual reaction she couldn’t suppress.
Say something, I wanted to beg her. Anything. Stop acting like you don’t know what it means, like you don’t know what I feel. Stop pretending you don’t care.
Her head turned toward me, and our eyes locked. For one glorious moment, everything fell away—the war, the endless years of loneliness, the pain, everything I had done.
Our breaths mingled, and I felt as if I were back at the beginning. Standing at the edge of the Abyss, the icy winds of the Other raging around us, my body thrumming with anticipation as I leaned closer to her, her face tilting up to mine…
In a swift motion, Baradaz pulled back, her expression shifting from vulnerable to guarded, as if a frozen wall had been rebuilt between us.
Her ability to rein in her emotions with ruthless efficiency would have impressed me if she were anyone else.
In her, I despised it. I had always hated it when she allowed any part of her nature to be caged.
“This was with your things. I suppose I don’t need to ask how you found me.
” Baradaz fiddled something out of the pocket of her breeches and placed it on the nightstand with a soft clink.
A lyr -stone, Air magic moving restlessly underneath its surface.
She gave me a questioning look. “How did you center a tracking spell? I wasn’t aware you had anything of mine in your possession. ”
You’re in my veins, I wanted to answer. It was the truth. If someone were to spill my blood, scatter my very being to the winds, I suspected the remaining tatters of my spirit would still yearn for her somehow.
“There was enough of your magic left in me to weave the spell.”
My response made her gaze flit away from me, her lips pressing together as she took a deep breath.
“Then you found quite the talented Air-Weaver,” she said hoarsely, deliberately ignoring my reminder of the bond between us.
Over the ages, she had surely cursed the existence of that bond countless times.
Not that more than a faint shadow of it remained.
“Or she found me,” I answered, for once not laying a finger on her wounds, too consumed by my own endless regrets. Baradaz stepped back to the table and began tidying up the medical supplies. “I see you had no qualms about going through my belongings,” I said, breaking the silence once more .
She shot me an annoyed look. “You arrived at my door badly wounded and without explanation. Who could have said whether whoever did this to you followed you here?” Her eyes flashed. “Call it a safety precaution.”
That silenced me, as I had no desire to discuss the details of my injuries with her.
“What happened?” she asked, a challenging look in her eyes. “Did your past catch up with you?”
I hesitated, reluctant to reveal the whole truth. It would not soften her toward me.
“In a way. It’s not as if I lack enemies,” I replied, allowing her to draw her own conclusions.
Baradaz huffed, but didn’t press for more details. However, I knew better than to think she wouldn’t bring it up again.
Something else was pressing on my mind, though—or more precisely, on my bladder. I cleared my throat. “Can you help me get to the bathroom?”
Baradaz raised an eyebrow, her expression turning sardonic. “You can’t even sit up on your own. There’s no way we’ll get you to another room.” She pulled a battered-looking pot that she had obviously dug up for this purpose from under the bed and shoved it in my hands. “Use this.”
“I am not using a bloody chamber pot, woman!” I snapped in indignation.
“Don’t worry. I shovel the dung of ten araks every other day.” Her eyes held not a glimmer of compassion as she stood up and moved toward the door. “I can manage emptying one chamber pot.”
Oh yes, why settle for merely damaging my self-esteem when she could utterly shred it to pieces and gather the sorry remains, creating a nice little bonfire to merrily dance around ?
The next minutes were perhaps among the most humiliating in my entire existence and left me trembling and covered in sweat. Being Human, I decided, not for the first time, was an utterly disgusting experience.
Baradaz returned with a steaming bowl of soup, brimming with fresh vegetables and aromatic herbs. I was hungrier than I expected.
“You should inform the King’s Council of my whereabouts,” I said after a few spoonfuls. “I’m sure the rest of the Ten would want to know I’m still alive.” Whatever the story behind her banishment, it would be wise to determine whether she still held any allegiance to our fellow Aurea.
“Mmm,” Baradaz murmured, sitting down on the only chair in the room and watching me eat with a peculiar expression on her face.
“There are those who believed that your death would restore balance to everything. That by killing the Adept of Chaos, its dark influence over Aron-Lyr would break as well, ushering in another age of peace. Did you know that?”
I suddenly lost my appetite, realizing this soup might be my last meal.
“I could probably make a deal,” she continued, her gaze piercing. “Either with Aramaz to keep his little secret, or with Sha’am. He’d love to bury that axe in your black heart.”
The spoon clattered into the bowl.
“Don’t worry. I won’t sell you out.” Baradaz rose, rigid and dismissive.
“Because I am not like you. But the moment you can sit on a horse, I want you gone. I don’t care where you go or what you do, but I want you out of my life forever.
And whatever regrettable history exists between us will be over. Once and for all.”
I stared up at her, a bitter laugh threatening to spill from my lips.
There was so much she did not know. About why I rebelled, about perfect, always so bloody righteous Aramaz.
About her beloved Allfather. So much that I wanted to tell her, that she needed to understand.
But she hadn’t wanted to listen to me when we met one last time during the war, when I had risked and lost everything in a final attempt to pull her to my side.
She would never believe me if I told her now.
“Rest now.”
Even her parting words seemed mocking, an expression of her wish to see me gone as quickly as possible. And it was not rest I found as I stared at the ceiling for hours, lying alone in her bed. It was only bleak despair.